Detect irregular heart beats

[Kavpdsl]

Millions of people experience irregular or abnormal heartbeats, called arrhythmias, at some point in their lives. Most of the time, they are harmless and happen in healthy people free of heart disease. However, some abnormal heart rhythms can be serious or even deadly. Having other types of heart disease can also increase the risk of arrhythmias.  

Now I fully understand that Fitbit products are not medical devises, yet they do help people get and stay healthy. And now with more people wearing their fitbits for longer there is a great opportunity for these products to be an aid to the detection of irrigular heart beat that would allow them to go to there doctor to get it checked out. With this feature you could save lives.  

[Timberbird]

Good idea but, as a heart patient, I would value more that whenever my heart rate exceeds a selectable value (like say 180 BPM under any circumstances) - a alarm is set.

[wscrivens]

I agree. Having an alarm that would trigger if heart rate exceeded a set maximum could literally save a life. 

[Norman12]

I agree. People with Afib and arrhythmias would like such an alarm. I vote for such a feature!

[Luck_E_Stars]

Can the versa tell us our blood pressure using our heart rate. Just like how doctors do this without using a cuff. Also it would be a nice  feature for the vesa to notify me of unusual spikes in my heart rate so I am aware of it. I currently have a condition where my heart rate will drop to an unusual rate and spike to an unusual rate. Thank you#

[GeraintL]

I think recording abnormal heartbeats would be a very good feature and I understand iPhone already has it.  I've been wearing my Charge2 since January 2017 and recently updated to the Charge3.  Two key measures I watch closely are my resting heartrate - usually below 60 - which places me in the 'excellent' category for heart health of people my age - 63, and sleep quality/duration.  However, the 'excellent' cardiac status may be a false indicator if the measure is not sufficiently comprehensive to provide people like me with a true sense of comfort about the status.  I don't want to drift through my life thinking my heart is in excellent condition and then suddenly keel over because of an event which I had not bargained for.  I have been diagnosed with some non-significant stenosis of cardiac arteries and am interested to be able to predict to some extent when I should seek medical intervention.  I don't want to keep going to the doc crying wolf.  

[AlexandraFitbit]

Hello @GeraintL! Thanks for sharing this suggestion, I moved it to this similar post so you can add your vote to it. Please keep sharing your ideas with us!

[rashford]

This feature, however initially implemented is surely worth moving to the top of the list.  At least look at someone's resting heart rate, and if its "way" higher, setup an alert of some sort.  After all, isn't this device (versa) supposed to be using the best heart rate pulse tracking?  Add something simple to start with and build on it once you learn how users appreciated the feature.  Is Apple going to own this space?

[Norman12]

I vote for that! I’m still hoping that Fitbit fixes their Charge 3 problems before I buy from another company...

[Pinsy]

I have noticed that when my heart rate goes really high the fitbit is unable to capture this - so I think that yes Apple will sadly own this space.

Lesley Carrington


Sent from my iPhone

[Mikeah]

I have concluded that many people with Atrial Fibrillation (AF) will invariably get, "your tracker couldn't get a consistent heart-rate reading while you slept." This has nothing to do with the hardware as I see it but the algorithm written to provide your sleep pattern does not seem to recognise one's heartrate reading overnight even though it recognises the resting heart rate and provides a graph of the heart rate readings overnight. I was hoping an algorithm could be written to recognise the irregular heart beats that stop the software from getting a consistent heart-rate reading and thus only providing the basic sleep graph. 

[wscrivens]

I don't have AF, but from the beginning, my Charge3 has not detected my sleeping properly.  I've tried all the hints on the forum, to no avail.  I would support improving the algorithm for sleep detection!

Walt

[SVuser]

Please enable Charge 3 to alert on higher heart rate or a set threshold while not exercising.

[jrsavoie]

i NEED SOMETHING. HAD A RECENT SPIKE in blood pressure. I haven't been keeping track of things like I should. Trying to ignore stuff and get some things done. I need something that will keep track of me when I won't keep track of myself, and warn me if my numbers are getting out of line. "

 Afib, Low and high heart rate blood pressure Aflutter

Does anybody have any recommendations since Fitbit has dropped the ball on this?

[SVuser]

OMRON has a watch which measures BP.
Oura ring has HRV, not sure of others.

Regards,

Venkat

[SpO2]

Would like to see ventricular premature beat (VPBs) detection, AKA extrasystoles. Commonly perceived as the heart "skipping a beat". People with arrhythmia can have this continuously for hours or even days. 1,000 VPBs per day or more should be cause for concern. App should be able to show this as a percentage per day. For simplicity's sake, say 1% or more of the day VPBs is cardiologist time.

I wrote extensively about this in another thread.

[LesleyWatts]

Hi 

I think these suggestions would help people a lot, but I also think Fitbit needs to engage with people more. I also have been diagnosed with afib and would have realised sooner something was wrong if Fitbit stopped telling us the same thing over and over again about lack of sleep data. I got my Fitbit Christmas day 2018. Since then I have had only about 30 days of actual sleep data and no data has been captured for longer then 5 days at a time. I have tried everything that has been suggested on this forum more then once and even swapped watches with my Fiance all to no avail. It has been incredibly frustrating as I really wanted the sleep data to find out if that was why I felt tired all the time. Also as I am loosing weight I was over the moon that according to my heart rate I was fat burning for most of the day. "Excellent! "I thought, "that will do nicely". Of course that is not the case as it means my heart rate is too fast, but when you try to look up how long you should be fat burning for, the internet just gives you lots of ways to fat burn for longer. Not helpful! If Fitbit knows that an irregular heartbeat can effect sleep data it should be one of the things mentioned when people complain about not getting it so they can get checked out sooner. Instead of the frustration of the situation making afib worse.

[dwberman]

You should purchase a Kardia ekg device. It works with your smart phone and
provides a very high grade ekg whenever you need it. I do not have
problems with the sleep monitoring function on the Versa. I find that the
band must be pretty tight and 1 inch or more above the wrist. Regarding
always tired, you may have sleep apnea which requires a test performed by a
pulmonologist. Your watch cannot diagnose the condition.

[REwald]

There are many comments here related to the functionality of the Kardia device.  I think this is exactly what we want - same functionality of Kardia that I can wear on my wrist 24x7.  Perhaps with the added functionality of some sort of alarm if/when I get out or rhythm.  This is currently possible with an Apple watch, but I really like my Fitbit and hope to be able to stay with this brand.  I am, however, running out of patience.  Any updates?

[jrsavoie]

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@Kavpdsl wrote:

Millions of people experience irregular or abnormal heartbeats, called arrhythmias, at some point in their lives. Most of the time, they are harmless and happen in healthy people free of heart disease. However, some abnormal heart rhythms can be serious or even deadly. Having other types of heart disease can also increase the risk of arrhythmias.  

Now I fully understand that Fitbit products are not medical devises, yet they do help people get and stay healthy. And now with more people wearing their fitbits for longer there is a great opportunity for these products to be an aid to the detection of irrigular heart beat that would allow them to go to there doctor to get it checked out. With this feature you could save lives.  

---

Exact same here. My Surge doesn't work right anymore and I am only going to buy something that does what I want.  Fitbit will be history to me if they don't partner with somebody or come up with something soon

[Dukesmusic]

Hello all, I originall Bought the Fitbit because I read how heart rate trackers can detect irregular heartbeats. Is this feature in the works yet or is there another way to gain access to this feature with another apple app?

[jap123]

seeing how it has been over a year since this suggestion was made. what is the status???? i see alot of we are looking into this option and need to study it more. but as previously noted apple has done the leg work already and have pushed it out to their device. now is the time for fitbit to get on  board as well. everybody in this forum agrees that it is now a perfect option, but as stated before sometimes having a little extra info for the doc is good at predicting future health concerns.

[Suzyff]

Here’s my update...just bought the Apple Watch for the cardiac and other health features. Good luck to all of you. Wake up, Fitbit.

Moderator Edit: Personal info removed

[Pinsy]

Hi
Are you finding the Apple Watch heart rate to be more accurate?
I find that the fitbit is not at all accurate.
Many thanks

Lesley Carrington


Sent from my iPhone

[Pinsy]

Hi Suzy

are you finding that the Apple Watch heart rate is more accurate? If find the fitbit to be unreliable for heart rate tracking unfortunately 

[Suzyff]

Hi - not only is it accurate, but it has an ECG feature that can send data to your doctor. Its cardiac features are FDA approved and light years ahead of what Fitbit is doing, in my opinion. I didn’t want to spend the money, but the health features on the Apple Watch are tough to beat.

Moderator Edit: Personal info removed